


Midsummer

by Lomonaaeren



Series: Advent Fics 2017 [8]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Handfasting, Happy Ending, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-02-12 10:44:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12957528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lomonaaeren/pseuds/Lomonaaeren
Summary: As Midsummer approaches, Harry has to decide whether to make a try at extending his and Lucius’s temporary handfasting into a permanent one…or to trust that Lucius might try that himself. Sequel to “Courts of the Sun.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an Advent fic written for the requests of several people who wanted to see what happened to Harry and Lucius after “Courts of the Sun.” You need to read that story first to understand this at all.

 

“I assume that you have everything ready for the dissolution of our bond at Midsummer.”

Lucius’s voice was neutral, his head turned aside. Harry tried to catch his eye across the breakfast table, but it was impossible as it always was at this time of day.

 _And most other times of day, too,_ Harry admitted to himself.

“Yes,” he finally said, giving up. “I have a hair from my head for each month we’ve been bonded and a ring my father wore.”

Lucius nodded and examined the _Daily Prophet_ with the same expression of disinterest he showed in everything. “That will be sufficient.”

Harry leaned back against the chair and watched Lucius. He thought he could get away with it, since Lucius was still invested in pretending to ignore everything outside his little bubble.

He was handsome, and that was the problem. Harry could have remained friends, and no more than that, with someone who was merely tolerable-looking. But Lucius had pale hair that he kept exquisitely groomed, and a face that was a lot less pointy than Harry had once thought it was, and deep, lustrous blue eyes.

_Listen to me. I sound like a second-year at Hogwarts!_

But Harry had to admit there was a reason for that. Even though Lucius didn’t show him warmth and probably never would, if Harry was realistic, he was _gracious_. He never showed any resentment for the strange handfasting that had let them get out of the magical topaz. He never stared at Harry and rolled his eyes. He never said anything about the blood purity beliefs that Harry sometimes thought he still harbored.

If Ron and Hermione came over, then Lucius would stay in the room reading, or make a few remarks. If Ron started talking about Malfoys, or Hermione about house-elves, Lucius would get up and leave, with a quiet dignity that drew Harry’s eyes far more than he would have imagined when he was flapping around after Cho and Ginny.

But he had changed, and so had Lucius. It was inevitable. Harry didn’t want to turn back the clock and pretend the change had never happened, either, which he sometimes thought Ron would have liked.

“Why are you looking at me?”

Unusually, Lucius was apparently going to take some notice of him. Harry answered honestly. “I like looking at you.”

Lucius paused, and lowered the newspaper. His blue eyes had widened a little. He reached out a hand as though he was going to pick up his plate, and put it down again. Harry frowned. He’d said things like that before, and Lucius had never paid attention. “Are you all right?”

“I don’t understand,” Lucius said, and shook his head. “You have said things like that before.”

“Yes,” Harry admitted cautiously.

“I thought you were going through a phase of infatuation, and would stop soon,” said Lucius, and Harry had to work hard not to splutter. He knew his own feelings _better_ than that, thanks. “And then I thought that perhaps you wanted to convince me to stay in the marriage.”

“That’s what I _would_ like. To give it a chance. To see what would happen.”

Lucius went on without deigning to notice this. “But when I said nothing, when I sometimes actively discouraged you with a stare or by leaving the room, you went on saying it. Why? What would you have to gain from it?”

“What do you mean, what do I gain from it? I gain honesty and maybe making you think that I _am_ being honest.” Harry was getting a little irritated now. Was Lucius always going to be this—this _stuck?_ All the changes, and this was what he couldn’t get beyond? “And if you don’t ever get to the point where you might give the handfasting a chance, still, you might take pleasure in knowing that I think you’re handsome.”

“Take pleasure,” Lucius said flatly.

“Well, yeah. I don’t know if you will. If you dislike it, I’ll stop. But you didn’t say anything one way or the other, so—”

Lucius stood up and left the room without another word.

Harry closed his eyes and, carefully, didn’t yell or break anything. Finally he sighed and reached for the omelet that he’d largely been ignoring.

It was _stupid,_ was what it was. Lucius ought to know by now that Harry was honest. He wouldn’t pretend to an interest he didn’t feel. He wouldn’t try to extend the handfasting because he had something political to gain from it.

 _We’ve changed, all right, I get that. But Lucius should be able to see that I could never change_ that _much._

*

The boy puzzled Lucius, perhaps because he was no longer a boy.

That was the thought passing through Lucius’s head as he watched Potter practicing his spellwork in the garden of the small house they were sharing. Lucius had inherited the house from a distant cousin who had hated him but would never have thought of leaving the property to anyone but blood. With a few house-elves to complete the dusting and refurnishing before they moved in, it had been more than tolerable.

Potter had never said anything one way or the other that would indicate he was used to living in more luxurious surroundings.

And neither was he practicing solely offensive spellwork, something Lucius had assumed he would without question. Potter rolled and ducked and leaped under the wands of a variety of imaginary opponents, but he used Scouring Charms in response, sometimes, and Tickling Charms—although admittedly with a twist to the incantation Lucius had never heard—and a _momentary_ Stunner that flickered in and out of existence so fast Lucius was not sure of the red color. Defensive charms, mostly.

 _The way to get killed._ That Potter had lived so far did not mean anything. There was always the future.

Potter finally trotted back into the house, panting, although it was mild at best outside. He tilted his head at Lucius when he saw him through the window, but didn’t pause, only waved and walked to the back door.

Lucius felt a sharp shiver run through him, a spasm of annoyance that he let out of his mouth when he heard the door shut. “Ignoring your handfasted?”

Potter appeared in the doorway, his eyebrows raised. “Er,” he said.

 _The epitome of elegance,_ Lucius thought with a sneer, but when he turned to face Potter, he realized there might be some things better than elegance.

Potter had a sort of _haze_ around him, a glow of well-being and sweat that made Lucius eye him before he could stop it. He had never favored that sort of exercise himself. Dueling with words outdid dueling with wands.

“Is something wrong?”

“You ignored me.”

“You spied on me.”

Lucius paused. He still wasn’t quite over the way Potter _responded_ , as if he had the perfect right to reply and answer and retort and counter. Sometimes he didn’t even bother with words. A raised eyebrow over the newspaper or a snort into his teacup—making droplets fly several _meters_ —was all he would give.

“Why did you agree to stay with me?” Lucius asked.

“You said it was the thing to do in handfasting,” Potter said, and his eyebrows crept up another tilt. “You said that we should behave honorably and you wouldn’t have anyone saying you agreed to this simply to get out of the topaz, and—”

“That is what I said. That is not an explanation for you _agreeing_.”

“Because I really don’t want to expose you to ridicule,” Potter said, very gently. “You’ve done nothing to deserve it. I’ve made my feelings clear, that I think you’re handsome and I’d like to have a chance. If you don’t want to, that’s all right.”

“Not _fine_?”

“No, because I do want a chance. But all right.”

“There is no alternative but _marriage_ at Midsummer, Potter,” Lucius said, and was proud of the way his voice rasped like a dragon’s. “You cannot want that simply because you think I’m handsome and it would be ‘all right.’”

“That’s not true. We could handfast for another year.”

Lucius paused. It was true that multiple handfastings have once been practiced, although the custom over time had become a trial period and then marriage. But handfasting again was nothing against honor, or custom, or tradition, or anything else he could think of.

“Why would you want that?”

“I told you,” Potter said, and raised his eyebrows at Lucius, and _walked out of the room._

Lucius wondered where his ability to have the last word had gone.

*

“Are you _sure_ this is a good idea, mate? I mean, you’ve already talked to him about it, and you said he was dead set against it—”

“No, he just seemed surprised when I talked about having multiple handfastings.” Harry shrugged and stole Ron’s glass of Firewhisky, which he hadn’t had a chance to take a drink of yet. Ron glared at him, but it was at the point in the evening when his aiming his wand would get him a chastisement from Hermione, so he instead he walked away to get another one from Tom. Harry sipped the drink and sighed.

“You seem so unhappy, Harry,” Hermione said quietly, leaning across the table and lowering her voice. “Do you really want to stay handfasted to Lucius Malfoy?”

Harry rolled his eyes. It was _also_ the point in the evening where he worried less about hurting his friends’ feelings—and where Hermione lost some of her brilliance. “I’ve said it over and over, Hermione. What I want is the chance. If we do another handfasting and it goes horribly, then in a year I can walk away.”

“A year is an awfully long time to spend in misery if it goes wrong.”

“But I don’t _know_ that it will,” Harry said. He reached over and tapped his glass against Hermione’s forehead, ignoring the way she jerked back in offense. “Besides, it’s not like I would just be glued to his side and unable to do anything else. I have the Aurors and my cases. I don’t even spend every night at—home now…” He trailed off.

“What?”

“I hadn’t realized I do think of that house as home.” Harry stared off into the distance, which in this case meant into the smoke and grease of the Leaky Cauldron, and then shook his head. “Huh.” He drained the rest of the Firewhisky.

He became aware that Hermione was staring past him with her jaw dropped. He turned around. “What? Is Ron bothering someone?”

But no. Instead, Hermione was staring at Lucius standing in the entrance of the Cauldron, his lip curling with the slight, perfect amount of disdain. Harry put down his glass and straightened carefully, hand on the back of the chair. It must be something urgent for Lucius to have come to fetch him like this. Maybe someone had attacked the house.

He wavered his way over, ignoring the way that Lucius’s lip curled harder when he saw him. It wasn’t like he didn’t already get that look on a daily basis. “What is it?”

Lucius grabbed his arm and leaned in so that Harry was the only one who could hear him. “If you are going to be my husband in truth,” he hissed at him, “I refuse to indulge such ridiculous behavior as this, drinking in public when you have work tomorrow morning.”

“What about when I _don’t_ have work tomorrow morning?” was the only thing Harry could think of to ask.

Lucius said, “You were the one who wanted to try this.” His voice remained low, and he was glaring beyond Harry at what was presumably Ron coming back with his drink, or maybe Hermione making up her mind as to whether she needed to intervene. “Are you going to come quietly, or do I have to drag you?”

“‘d have to cast a Sobering Charm first,” Harry muttered, giggling a little at the thought of Lucius dragging him down Diagon Alley.

The quick narrowing of Lucius’s eyes said he was perfectly willing to try that. Harry rested one hand. “All right, I’ll come with you. Just let me say goodbye to his friends.” He turned around and waved at them.

“Can you walk back all that way?”

“That’s why I _waved_ ,” Harry explained in a calm, superior tone, and he was glad that he was so drunk that Lucius’s tone wasn’t going to have its usual effect on his body.

They stepped out into the cool spring evening. Lucius arranged his cloak so that the folds were crisper around his shoulders, or something. Harry had to admit he wasn’t really in the position to notice fine details right now.

“You are remarkably hard to find,” Lucius murmured, keeping pace with him, even letting Harry lean against him a little as they proceeded towards the Apparition point. Harry might have leaned harder than he needed to, but it wasn’t like Lucius could tell.

“I left you a note telling you that I was going drinking with Ron and Hermione!”

“You neglected to mention _where_.”

“The same place I always drink,” Harry said, and felt a jolt of sadness that not even his drunken state could hide. He pulled back reluctantly from Lucius, only for Lucius to catch his arm and keep him close. “I’ve told you that before. I didn’t think I needed to mention because—I thought you would know.”

This time, the silence wrapped them until they reached the Apparition point. Harry only looked at Lucius when he had to turn so he could get into Side-Alonging position, and then his eyes darted upwards without permission.

Lucius gave him a careful look, and then said, “I might not have paid as much attention to your activities as I should.”

And he took Harry’s arm, and Side-Along Apparated him before Harry could absorb that that was meant as an apology.

*

Harry _did_ always take care to tell him where he went after that.

Lucius watched. He listened. He hadn’t realized how often Harry talked to him, even if it was only putting his head around the corner to say, “I’ll be late on a case tonight,” or “I thought the house-elves could make those beans and rice you liked so well for dinner,” or “Is that a new hair potion you’re using?” All the time. He was just _there_. Lucius had got used enough to it that he might not have noticed if the chatter had stopped.

But now, he would have. Harry tried to talk to him more often for a few days after Lucius’s necessary visit to the pub. But then he slipped back to his former levels, and to cautious glances at Lucius from under his eyelashes when he seemed to think Lucius wouldn’t notice.

Lucius had to exert himself more. Harry had come as far as he could. He seemed to think that, Lucius’s words at the Leaky Cauldron notwithstanding, Lucius didn’t want more, or it had been only a ploy, or he had decided against continuing his newfound interest.

So Lucius waited until the next time Harry suggested that the house-elves could prepare a roast he liked, and then nodded. “That would be acceptable.”

Harry, already halfway to the front door, started and turned around. “Really?” he asked, a faint red flush climbing to his cheeks. Then again, he had just been training outdoors in another practice session.

“Yes. Of course. Did I ever give you the impression that I disapproved of your culinary choices? I always eat it.”

“Yes, but that’s the only sign of approval you give.”

“I had forgotten that someone else—”

Lucius cut himself off, but Harry was watching, and Lucius knew he wouldn’t get away with that for long. “Forgotten what?”

“Forgotten that someone might know me less well than Narcissa,” Lucius said, because he had to.

Harry paused, then said quietly, “Of course. I’m sorry. _I_ forgot.” He shook his head. “I don’t know how, but I forgot.”

“Forgot that I was married?” Lucius had learned to see through some of the glittering facades that Harry created. Harry might play the bumbling Auror or self-impressed Boy-Who-Lived to fool some criminals. Such tactics had not worked on Lucius, because he _willed_ them not to work.

“No. I forgot that you have perfectly legitimate reasons for not wanting to stay handfasted another year.” Harry was staring across the large, open drawing room towards the windows that opened onto the garden. “I’m sorry. I—don’t know how I convinced myself otherwise.” He turned and slipped towards the front door again.

“Wait, Harry.” Lucius stood, and, when that didn’t work because Harry still seemed intent on opening the door, he cast a spell that stuck it shut. Harry didn’t try to open it, but simply stood there, shoulders bowed as if he was accepting the inevitable. Lucius found he did not care to see that, and his voice sharpened to the blade that would pierce Harry’s indifference and force him to open his mouth. “You are no doubt supposing something foolish. I would like to know what it is now, so that I can spend the least possible amount of time dealing with it.”

Harry turned around, and his cheeks were flushed with anger now. It was—becoming on him, Lucius had to admit. Now that he had begun to entertain these thoughts, it was hard not to go on thinking about them, not to admire the turn of Harry’s wrist or catch his breath when those green eyes flashed.

“I forgot that you were married to a woman, and wouldn’t want a man,” Harry said. His voice was dusty, croaking, but he said the words. He didn’t look away from Lucius while he said them, either. “Like I said, I don’t know how I convinced myself otherwise.”

“I said I wanted to decide for myself who I bonded to.”

“Yes. I remember. In the topaz. And—”

“I meant I was choosy,” Lucius said. “I can afford to be. Not entirely uninterested.”

Harry blinked at him, and simply stood there as Lucius moved forwards and laid a considering hand on his cheek. His breathing got a little faster, but he didn’t look away and he didn’t break. He was stronger than that, truly.

Lucius had thought so. He had simply wanted to see how Harry would react to his touch.

He leaned forwards and kissed Harry. Harry was quiet and shuddering in disbelief for long seconds. Then he flung his arms around Lucius’s shoulders and kissed him back.

Lucius let their tongues touch for only a moment before he retreated. He was choosy, as he had said, and he wanted some more pursuit, not a hasty kiss and grope in the middle of the drawing room that Harry might regret later.

“Before you assume anything else about me,” he said, and stood there for long enough to watch Harry swallow in reaction to the wetness on his lips, “you should _ask_.”

Harry remained still long enough for Lucius to count almost to seven. Then he nodded and smiled, and went out the door, on his way to work.

It was an ordinary day in many respects. Lucius, as he sat down with his paper again, though that he had _also_ forgotten that he himself possessed the power to change such a day if he wanted to.


	2. Chapter 2

“Mate? Are you all right?”

Harry sighed and nodded. He was, once again, drinking with Ron and Hermione, but as he had promised Lucius, he was doing it on a weekend. “Yes. Lucius is confusing, that’s all.”

“Of course he is. He was probably born knowing how to be confusing. Or they taught him to do that in those secret Malfoy lessons that we all know they give Malfoys.”

“Secret Malfoy lessons?”

Ron nodded vigorously, his hair flopping into his eyes. Harry leaned his elbow on the table and smiled at Ron. Lucius was so confusing that it was sometimes a relief to spend time with his friends. Ron would always be straightforward and shining and completely honest, even when he shouldn’t be.

“Yes. You know, they take their kids—” Ron waved his hand to indicate a whole legion of nonexistent Malfoys “—and sit them down and tell them to confuse the shit out of everybody. To smile mysteriously. To make these cryptic remarks.”

“Why, though?” Hermione asked, suddenly looking up from her glass. “Why would they do that? It has to have some purpose if they dedicate a whole education to it.”

Ron started out inventing a new curriculum, and Harry smiled and listened, but his mind was on Lucius. He wondered if he was the only one who _didn’t_ find the man mysterious. He’d been wrong about him on multiple occasions since they started living together, but he didn’t think Lucius was being confusing on purpose. Instead, Harry assumed some things and thought others didn’t have a purpose when they did.

The thought made him restless. He couldn’t read Lucius from this far away. He stood up.

“Mate?” Ron tilted his head back.

“I think I’ve had enough to drink. I’m going home.” Harry smiled at both of them and left his empty mug on the table. “Lucius will probably be happy to see me so early in the evening, anyway.”

“Yes, I think he will be.” Hermione gave him a cryptic smile of her own and hid behind her mug when Harry stared at her.

Harry rolled his eyes and reminded himself that Hermione wasn’t _always_ wise—she hadn’t realized why Harry would want to stay handfasted to Lucius—and then Apparated home.

Lucius was sitting at the table, reading. He looked at Harry when he walked through the door and frowned a little. “Did you have an argument with your friends?”

“No,” Harry said, and cast a Sobering Charm on himself so that what had seemed like a good idea when he was drunk would still seem like a good idea. Luckily, it did. He smiled at Lucius and walked a little closer. “I just decided that I wanted to spend time with you.”

This time, he was paying attention enough to see the subtle cues. Lucius’s eyes darkened enough that Harry could see the change, and his breathing quickened a touch. He didn’t lay aside the newspaper he held, but Harry hadn’t expected him to. He stepped up behind Lucius and bent down, making sure to freshen his breath with a charm, too, before he kissed Lucius.

Lucius held himself still in the chair, only shifting a little and opening his mouth so that the tip of his tongue touched Harry’s. Harry shuddered with pleasure and moved around in front of Lucius, stroking his arms and his mouth at the same time.

When he won a tiny groan, he pulled back, smiled at Lucius, sat down across the table, and began talking about the article on the front page of the _Prophet_ , which concerned corruption accusations against the new Minister.

Lucius watched him with hot eyes, but he was the one who had wanted to stretch this out. That meant he could wait a little while, and have a normal evening conversation with his handfasted.

The man who might become his husband.

Harry shivered himself, and from the deepening of Lucius’s smile, he knew Lucius had noticed. He smiled back and continued the conversation, then made sure to trail his fingers across Lucius’s shoulder as he stood up and went up to bed.

By himself, for now. But maybe not for much longer, if their compatibility had anything to say about it.

*

Harry was driving him _mental_.

Lucius considered the word, and nodded over it. It was one he never would have said aloud, because it would sound less than dignified, but he had no reason to be so dignified in the confines of his own head.

Harry knew exactly how to seduce, when he wanted to. That he seemed to have left those talents unexercised until now didn’t matter. He knew how to smile sidelong, and make Lucius start thinking about activities not suitable for the public eye by the way his tongue darted along the edge of his lip. He knew how to toss his head back so that his eyes gleamed and his throat was bare, and Lucius had to think about how the one would change when he was sucking on the other.

He touched Lucius all the time now: shoulder, arm, cheek, hair. The touches to his hair in particular were maddening. Lucius found himself holding still under Harry’s caresses there as if he was a wild animal being tamed, and Harry would give him a faint smile and glide away, and Lucius would fight to keep his hands, that wanted to snatch, in his lap.

He had wanted to be pursued. He had wanted to be courted. Harry was obliging with a vengeance.

And then it occurred to Lucius that Harry might want to be pursued and courted himself, and he could get back some of his own.

*

Harry blinked his eyes open slowly. He’d stumbled out of the Floo earlier and simply collapsed onto the chair in front of the fire. He hadn’t really _meant_ to, but he was so exhausted by the multiple chases he’d done today that he hadn’t had a choice. Several cells had had their spells that kept criminals from using magic or moving out of them fail, and Harry had hunted people he had already captured down the corridors of the Ministry.

Several of them had been able to use wandless or accidental magic, too, and Harry had been limping, bruised, and a little bloodied by the time he made it home.

Now, hands were running down his neck and shoulders. They had magic or maybe a soothing potion on them, and Harry groaned and arched back as he realized how much better he already felt, the aches flowing away as if he’d taken a painkiller.

Someone had pushed his Auror robes away from his shoulders and neck to reach bare skin, he realized in a daze. He found himself unable to really care. He only tipped forwards in encouragement and groaned again.

“Yes, I thought so,” Lucius said, in a voice that Harry would curse him out for later when he wasn’t bringing heaven to Harry’s shoulders with his hands. And then he let him go.

Harry tried to sit up and yell a protest, but Lucius made a soothing noise and came around the couch. In a second, he’d steered Harry down so that he was lying on his stomach, and his robes were gone completely. Harry didn’t know if Lucius had taken them off or just Vanished them, and honestly, at the moment he didn’t much care.

He moaned as Lucius touched him, and for a second Lucius’s hands faltered. Harry wriggled against him, and after a second, Lucius did resort to carefully massaging him again.

“You’re almost melting into the couch,” Lucius said, and his voice had gone quiet and smug, in a way that meant Harry would have to murder him when he managed to open his eyes. For now, he couldn’t, feeling the aches and the bruises dissolve and puddle away. “I had no idea I was so good at this.”

“Keep on being good at it,” Harry said, his own words warped and blurred in a fashion he’d never experienced. Well, maybe a few times when someone cast a Mouth-Melting Curse at him, but that was hardly the same thing. He stretched luxuriously when Lucius finally pulled his hands away, and sighed. “Wonderful. I won’t be sore and stiff in the morning, thanks to you.”

“Would you like to be stiff and sore in the morning _thanks_ to me?”

Harry’s eyes flew open. Suddenly his relaxation was—not gone, but transmuted into something else. He turned slowly, so that he was meeting Lucius’s eyes. Lucius was leaning over the back of the couch still, but now it looked like a deliberate, calculated pose, not just something he was doing because it would let him reach Harry’s back.

Harry sighed out slowly. “If you really—if you’re not sure that you want to get married or handfasted at midsummer, don’t say that, Lucius.”

“I am sure.”

Harry stood up. He was shaking, which was ridiculous, since he’d certainly had sex before. But nothing in any of his other relationships had ever felt as important as the moment when he held out his hand to Lucius. “Come on, then.”

*

They swung into Harry’s bedroom almost by default. It was closer, and when Harry was kissing him against the wall and Lucius couldn’t think, it was the door Lucius instinctively groped towards. He only had a minute to look at the framed photographs on the walls, most of them of dead people, before Harry impatiently stripped off the rest of his clothes and crawled onto the bed.

“One thing I’m going to tell you.”

Lucius paused in the middle of removing his own robes. Harry was looking at him with strong, stern, clear eyes. Lucius felt a little insulted. Harry was supposed to be _considerably_ more melted than that, after the massage Lucius had given him.

“Yes?” Lucius replied, when he realized that Harry was still staring at him, waiting for him to say something.

“I sometimes had a problem with my lovers in the past because they had misconceptions about me.” Harry leaned forwards, his arms resting on his knees. Lucius couldn’t help his gaze dipping to Harry’s cock, but even though it was hard and impressive, that mattered less than Harry’s eyes right now. “They thought I needed gentle handling. Sometimes they knew about my past and decided that was why. Other times they couldn’t see themselves being rough with the hero of the wizarding world.”

Lucius felt a sharp tingle making its way through him, something he had almost never felt in the past except when he was casting Dark Arts spells. He swallowed. “Yes?” he said again.

“I want to be fucked _hard_ , Lucius.”

It was perfection. It was the way Lucius felt, the way he preferred to handle his lovers. He smiled and dropped his robes on the floor. “That will not be a problem.”

Harry’s own gaze went straight to his cock, in both meanings of the word. Harry looked as if he was about to drool when Lucius moved away from the side of the bed and up to him in the middle. “Oh, good,” Harry sighed, reaching out to caress him.

Lucius stood still, biting his lip and shutting his eyes, until Harry made a sound too much like a chuckle. Then he grabbed Harry and pinned him to the bed. He got a startled breath, but also immediately fluttering eyes and arching hips.

“Yes, that’s what you want,” Lucius said. “How fortunate that it’s what I want, too.” He cast the spell that would slick his cock and also slicken his way. Harry bit his own wrist to hide his reaction to that.

Lucius reached out and moved Harry’s hand away from his mouth with a patient air. “No,” he said. “We both want you to be fucked, but in return, I also want to hear all the noise you make.”

“You might be sorry you said that,” Harry muttered.

Lucius found out what he meant when he sank into Harry. Harry almost yowled, and then clawed up his back and kept up a litany of muttered swear-words, mouthed obscenities, and bitten-off words that sounded like Lucius’s name. That wasn’t to mention the way that he drummed his hands on Lucius’s back and his heels against his legs and told him to move faster, faster, harder, _harder_.

Lucius came to the realization that he was still holding back. It wasn’t because of Harry’s past or nonsense such as that. It was only because part of him always had held back, not wanting to hurt Narcissa, not wanting to hurt the rare witch or wizard he’d been with before her.

“I can feel you’re not giving me everything, Lucius. Bastard. Come on, _give_ it to me!”

Lucius let the last barrier fall, and began to _move_.

Harry cried out, but it was a cry of satisfaction, and Lucius honestly didn’t know if he could have stopped himself even if it wasn’t. Harry was contracting around him, clawing down his back, babbling in his ear, his own cock pushing firm and distracting against Lucius’s stomach. Lucius was gasping, and the muscles in his shoulders and hips and legs clenched as though he was surging through the air on a broom.

He could only do this a little while. It wasn’t going to be much longer...

And then the moment _hit,_ and Lucius knew it wasn’t going to be much longer, and he was bruised and sore and racked and triumphant, and he didn’t _care._ He pushed forwards and released into Harry as though it was the only thing that mattered, them and this joining and this bed.

Harry followed right behind him, muttering soft things in his throat. When Lucius reared his head back, blinking and twitching, Harry reached up and caressed his cheek. His smile was smooth and small and self-aware.

“I think it’s going to be the marriage, isn’t it? Not another handfasting year?”

If Lucius hadn’t given of himself so completely, he might have missed the anxiety hovering in the back of Harry’s voice. He turned his head, kissed Harry’s palm, and said only, “It is.”

Harry closed his eyes and went to sleep all in one final collapse, leaving Lucius with the sticky and slightly risky problem of disentangling himself and casting enough spells to clean them up without waking Harry.

But it didn’t matter, any more than his own pain had while he was giving Harry what Harry had asked for. This was worth it.

*

In the end, the marriage ceremony was so simple Harry wondered why more couples didn’t go through with it.

Lucius had found him a bracelet, something he said was appropriate for a second marriage of the kind they were going to make. When Harry had reminded Lucius this was his _first_ marriage, Lucius only smiled and said, “And this is your second to the man you’ve been handfasted to for six months.”

Well. Put that way—and with the assurance that Lucius would never love him less than Narcissa, just in a different way—what could Harry do but yield?

He stood in front of Hermione, who’d been the officiant right from the beginning, with no opposition from Lucius. They were alone in the garden of Ron and Hermione’s house. The rest of the Weasleys didn’t feel that comfortable attending Harry’s marriage to a Malfoy, and Harry could understand. He would let them come closer to him in little rushes or skitters as they needed to, and always leave the possibility of friendship or conversation open.

Besides, he was getting married for himself. Not other people.

Lucius didn’t seem to need a larger audience at all. His gaze had fastened on Harry the minute Harry brought his own bracelet out, set with the rubies that were emblematic of Midsummer in some traditions, representing the roses said to bloom then. And he stood still while Harry fastened the bracelet around his wrist, and he pulled out his own when Harry was done.

“ _Topaz_?” Ron muttered, forgetting his manners the way he rarely did anymore.

Harry nudged him with one elbow. But Lucius only smiled a little at Ron and said, “It was a topaz that we were trapped in. It is fitting.” He clasped the bracelet around Harry’s wrist, and Harry tilted his arm back and forth to admire it.

And he heard Ron choke a little, and he smiled. It seemed that Ron had only _just_ realized that the entire bracelet was made of topaz, rather than set with them. Harry shook his head at Lucius. “Do I want to know how much this cost you?”

“Not as much as my foolishness would have cost me if I had allowed you to walk away.”

Harry lowered his head. He honestly couldn’t meet Lucius’s eyes at the moment. He felt the gentle touch of Lucius’s fingers on his arm, and then Lucius withdrew his hand and nodded to Hermione.

Hermione sounded a little choked-up as she recited the traditional vows, the ones that asked for health and happiness and harmony and other things beginning with “h” that Harry didn’t pay that much attention to. All of his attention was for Lucius even if he couldn’t look him in the eye right now. The way he shifted, the pattern of his breathing, how he kept one hand on the bracelet Harry had given him as though he wasn’t sure it was real.

And then the moment came when the magic around them coalesced into waiting silhouettes of a couple leaning forwards to kiss, and paused, expectant. Harry blushed as he leaned in and kissed Lucius, but he had known he would have to do this in front of his friends, and although his cheeks scalded, he _wanted_ to.

Lucius’s lips were just as warm and tender as they were when he kissed Harry in private. He drew back and let his hand rest on Harry’s cheek as it had been resting on the bracelet. Harry stared at him for a second, and then broke into a wide grin.

“We’re _married_.”

“You are,” said Hermione, shaking the sleeve of the official silver gown back from her wrist. “And I hope you’re happy.”

The tone of her voice was a warning. Both she and Ron felt that Harry had rushed into the marriage with Lucius. But Harry only grinned at her and said, “We will be.”

Hermione finally rolled her eyes and smiled. Both she and Ron would support him no matter what or who he chose, Harry knew, just as they would support him if it didn’t work out. “Congratulations, Harry. Mr. Malfoy.”

“Thank you,” said Lucius, and drew Harry against him for another kiss. This was the one where Ron and Hermione turned politely away.

Harry bowed his head and let Lucius’s hands and lips both travel through his hair, sighing with pleasure. He could feel Lucius smile, and then his husband murmured, “Shall we go somewhere else, away from prying eyes?”

“Please.”

And Lucius laughed softly, and led Harry to the point outside Ron and Hermione’s garden where they could Apparate. For the first time since Lucius had given him the bracelet, Harry looked at him directly.

It was still almost too much. It was still almost like looking into a sun of happiness and pleasure. But he would have to learn to carry this joy.

_I made the right decision._

*

_This was the right thing to do._

And Lucius was utterly sure—because of the six months they had spent handfasted as much as their compatibility in bed—that they would enjoy what was to come.

_Together._

**The End.**


End file.
